The permanent triggers are so incredibly tempting. Tina just wants Leah to be her little baby! But she also doesn't want to completely control her life like that. And if Leah is really unhappy with a toddler life, Tina doesn't want to force her into it.
Tina's gaze lands on the long-term triggers. These will keep Leah performing this behavior for a month. That's perfect. If Leah hates it, it will wear off on its own. But if she likes it, she can continue to do it.
And who knows, even if she wants to live like a teenager still, maybe by then she'll continue to do some of the traits just because she's so used to them. It would be so cute, Leah in high school with some toddler tendencies!
Tina spends the rest of the day planning. Her idea is that Leah will catch a mysterious illness, which causes the behaviors she's going to trigger. That works for the length of time Leah will have them.
Before she goes to bed, Tina uses two triggers on Leah: sucking her thumb and poor coordination. Leah won't suck her thumb constantly, but she will still do so, and be unable to make herself stop on command like she did earlier. She'll just eventually get bored of it and stop.
In the morning, Tina observes Leah stumbling around like a toddler, sucking on her thumb. It's working perfectly.
Tina drops Leah off at school. As she hugs her stepdaughter goodbye, she whispers another trigger word in Leah's ear. Then she goes home and waits for the school to call her to pick Leah up.
It only takes a few hours for the call to come in. Leah needs to be picked up because she...